Effectiveness of Mental Health First Aid Training in Sweden. A Randomized Controlled Trial with a Six-Month and Two-Year Follow-Up

The introduction of the training program was made in accordance with the constructor’s instructions. Participants were mainly public sector employees from a county in the west of Sweden. The study was a randomized controlled trial with an experiment group (n = 199) and a control group (n = 207) placed on a waiting list during a 6-month follow-up. A two-year follow-up was conducted for participants (n = 155) from both the intervention and waiting list group who had completed the training and during the follow-up been in contact with persons with mental disorders. The intervention group improved in knowledge as well as in confidence in providing help for someone in need. The two-year follow-up showed that the improvements were to a great extent maintained.

Conclusions

Mental Health First Aid might raise the level of awareness of mental disorders and have an influence on the number of people who can receive professional treatment for their problems.

Background According to a recent report from the European Brain Council and the European Colleague of Neuropsychopharmacology the one year prevalence of some kind of mental disorder is around 27% among the adult population in Europe. Research has...